Notes are not a copy of the textbook — they are a compression of it. The compression is where the learning happens.
The one rule: your own words
Copying sentences from the board or book stores them on paper, not in your head. Forcing yourself to rephrase — shorter, simpler, yours — is what makes a note worth writing. If you cannot rephrase it, you have found exactly the thing you do not yet understand.
Three formats worth knowing
- Cornell: divide the page — notes on the right, cue questions on the left, a two-line summary at the bottom. The left column later becomes a ready-made self-test.
- Mind maps: best for chapter overviews and essay subjects — one branch per idea, connections drawn explicitly.
- Formula sheets: for maths, physics, accounts — one page per chapter with every formula, one worked micro-example each. In revision week these pages outperform everything else you own.
The 24-hour touch
Re-touch notes within a day of writing them — add anything missing, underline what the teacher stressed, turn headings into questions. Ten minutes inside 24 hours protects against the steep first drop of the forgetting curve.
Turn notes into questions
The endgame of good notes is testing. Convert each heading into a question and try answering from memory — or feed the chapter name into 7Marks and get a proper question paper on it with an answer key. Notes tell you what you covered; questions tell you what you kept.